The Kooks

Popular

The Kooks emerged in 2005 with a slew of Top Twenty hits (‘You Don’t Love Me’, ‘Naïve’, ‘She Moves In Her Own Way’) and a two million-selling debut album ‘Inside In/Inside Out’ in 2006.

An almost instant sensation – 2008’s second album ‘Konk’ reached Number One in the UK and spawned the Top Three hit ‘Always Where I Need To Be’ – they weathered the departure of original bassist Max Rafferty and founding drummer Paul Garred and the media backlash against noughties guitar pop with an admirable resilience, determination and circumspection. “With the humility came better records because we got put in our place,” Luke considers. “All those times where we thought ‘we’re not in the club’, it kinda made you go ‘we've gotta work a bit harder’.”

‘Let’s Go Sunshine’ – easily the best Kooks record since their debut, if not altogether - is that instant, lovestruck classic, and so much more. Like all of the great British albums, it’s unbound by genre, merging retro funk, dreampop, epic glam, indie rock, country punk, chamber balladry and more, aiming for adventure rather than appeasement.